P

PALE, THE
The idea of the Pale has become one of the defining
features of late-medieval Ireland, symbolizing the
political and cultural differences that divided the
Gaelic Irish from the English settlers. The word
derives from the Latin pallus, meaning a stake, and
by extension a defensive wall built from stakes; the
derivation is identical to that of the word “palisade.”
But in the Irish context the word came to refer, not to
a defensive perimeter, but to the area enclosed by such
a notional perimeter; the area in which English culture
and English law was observed. The Pale (roughly com-
prising the four “loyal” counties of Louth, Meath,
Dublin, and Kildare) corresponded to “the land of
peace,” as opposed to “the land of war” where Gaelic
rule held sway.
Defense of these counties from the Gaelic Irish
became an increasingly precarious matter throughout
the fifteenth century, a fact reflected by the widespread
construction of defended tower houses. However, the
first mention of an enclosing perimeter around the four
counties comes from a statute of Poynings in 1494,
urging that defensive ditches be constructed around the
Pale. Before his appointment to Ireland, Poynings had
served as governor of Calais, where the territory
around the port was referred to as “the English Pale
of Calais;” the term probably came to Ireland with the
new deputy lieutenant.
Stretches of earthworks matching the description in
Poynings’ statute can still be seen, for example at
Kilteel in County Kildare, but the construction of a
continuous barrier encircling the four counties was
never attempted. The Palesmen never had the resources
to garrison or maintain such a fortification. Rather,
given the prevailing Irish strategy of cattle raiding,
such earthworks as were constructed served to impede
the movement of herds through open land into Irish-
held territories.

Far from comprising a continuous defensive ram-

part, the frontier between the Irish and the settlers was

an ill-defined and fluid affair, which fluctuated over

the years according to the fortunes of war. Although

Louth was counted as one of the loyal counties of the

Pale, by the late-fifteenth century the community was

paying “black rents” (or protection money) to the Uí

Néill (O’Neills) on an almost annual basis. Since the

Pale was neither a solid defensive line nor a strictly-

defined territory, perhaps the best definition of “the

Pale” is as the name of a community of people; that

is, those people of English descent, settled in the coun-

ties around Dublin, whose political loyalty remained

strongly with the English crown.

Historians have often discussed the Pale and the

Palesmen in this sense, frequently in relation to events

almost a century before the first historical appearance

of the term in 1495. This makes sense, since the defin-

ing characteristics of the Pale emerged long before the

word itself became common currency. The 1366 Stat-

utes of Kilkenny show that fears about the erosion of

English culture and customs was widespread in the

fourteenth century, and in the mid-fifteenth century

commentators were already lamenting that English

rule had been restricted to an area along the east coast

scarcely thirty miles long and twenty miles deep. This

siege mentality shaped the emerging consciousness of

the Pale community, and expressed itself in their fre-

quent appeals to the king to provide them with strong

leadership and military aid to crush, or at least stem

the advance of, the Gaelic Irish.

In reality, the English kings were too distant to pro-

vide the strong leadership required to bolster the Pale,

and such English deputies as were sent from time to

time often found themselves overwhelmed by the com-

plexities of Irish factionalism. The great magnates, such

as the earls of Desmond, Ormond, and Kildare, who

should have been the natural leaders of the Pale gentry,